Gantz — anime review
Lonely as floating ice… in a good way.
I’ve been a fan of anime since roughly 1993. I was in junior high and my gateway drug was AKIRA. I had previously seen American “adult” endeavors such as Heavy Metal, and the French film Light Years, and consequentially had been bored to tears, but this film from Japan was so kinetic, so fresh, so totally different. Shortly thereafter the cyberpunk sprawl of AKIRA was joined by apocalyptic wasteland of Fist of the North Star, the deadly-cool of The Professional: Golgo 13, and the violent beauty of Ninja Scroll, Blade of Kamui, and others. Anime provided a veritable cornucopia of ultra-violence, metaphysics, cyberpunk, martial arts, and hot animated chicks – in short everything a nerdy adolescent could ever want.
A few years later and many years wiser, I realize different fans approach their fandom, well, differently. I’ve returned to fishing in the anime sea, and found the tasty tidbits that are Cowboy Bebob, Gungrave, the Goldenboy-esque naughtiness that is Chobits, and even caught the theatrical release of the obviously fantastic Ghost in the Shell 2.That said, Gantz is the first series I felt the need to write about.
Gantz is fricking awesome. Perpetually oscillating between the disturbing, mysterious, perverted, horrific, explosive, meditative, surreal, hilarious, and introspective, Gantz is one of the most entertaining, and frankly, best animes I’ve seen in recent years.
The namesake of the show refers to a black ball, containing a strange bulky man seemingly in stasis (naturally), that summons people at the moment of their death into the tatami floored room where it (resides. Once enough people are assembled, Gantz informs them of a mission they must perform, often involving some sort of killing, that they must perform before the allotted time is up. Guns and suits apprehensively referred to as “cosplay suits” by one of the main characters) are provided and the participants are teleported to the mission environment. Those that survive Gantz’s game are presented with their “skores” and are allowed to return to their lives, at least until Gantz summons them again.
We’re first introduced to the student Kei Kurano. In an uncomfortable moment in a subway station, awaiting the train home, he notices an old friend also waiting for the train. His initial attempts at avoidance are thwarted as a drunken bum falls off the platform and onto the tracks; the train just minutes from arriving and his old acquaintance the only one to attempt help. The friend notices Kei and calls to him for help. Much to his chagrin he to jumps down to the rails and the two aid the bum to safety, only to find they themselves cannot make it back upon the platform. As the famous quote goes, “no good deed goes unpunished.” The train closes in, and the boys are splattered, yet almost as immediately as they connect with the train, they find themselves whole, unscathed, in a room full of similarly fated people. Others continue to arrive, including the beautiful suicide “victim”, Kei. Before any of them can truly catch their bearings the Nubian orb that is Gantz taunts the participants, gives them their orders, and sends them on their way. The game begins.
No one escapes Gantz’s ordeal without substantial damage to their psyche. For example, one sequence in episode 3 has Kurano confronted with murdering the game target. The emotional and ethical conflict experienced by the character is so raw, so poignant, and so real the audience cannot help but empathize; any trace of disbelief completely obliterated. During said scene I was amazed at how intensely the emotion was communicated to the audience; far more so than even the similarly themed cult, and personal favorite, Battle Royale. Repeatedly forced to make decisions they would rather not, certain characters become twisted, while others can only look on in despair. Not helping matters is the fact that failure to perform can result in an exploded head.
Based on the manga of the same name by Hiroya Oku and serialized in Young Jump magazine, the story is surprisingly well crafted and grabs you from the get go. Characters are believable, and immediately identifiable. Each episode has its own feel and pace. Certain episodes are all about character development, while others solely about delivering breathless action. Granted, certain episodes have better flows than others, and there are a few that move so painfully slow they would have been better omitted, or combined into other episodes tobetter ensure audience retention. That said, however, each episode manages to drop the necessary breadcrumbs for unraveling the mystery of Gantz. For example, are the characters really dead, or facsimiles of their old selves? Is there a grand design behind their being picked by Gantz, or is their unfortunate state of affairs just the work of cosmic coincidence? The visual style of the show is a blend of clean cell based character designs, and three dimensional computer environments. While this has been done before, the steady-cam style virtual pans, zooms, and tracking shots are truly unique, and blend quite well the 2 and 3 dimensional objects. Topping off the package is an ultra catchy opening song by Rip Slyme, and the beautiful closing by Natsuki Sogawa.
As can be expected given the subject matter of the show, the production ran into excessive censorship from all corners when run on Japanese television. Boobs and violence aside, one curious item that raised the ire of the censors, as related by the director Ichiro Itano in an interview that serves as a special feature on the first disc, was the fact a segment featured a biker gang riding their motorcycles without wearing helmets. The director responded to the effect that if they were wearing helmets, they wouldn’t be a biker gang. Thankfully the DVD release delivers all the episodes uncut, exactly as they were intended, though in a seeming throwback to the old VHS days of anime, you only get two episodes per disc (later discs contain three episodes).
Make no mistake; Gantz is a dark, cynical, brooding piece of anime. Those that do venture into the realm of Gantz, however, will find a surprisingly deep story that actually warrants multiple viewings. If you’ve grown tired of the manic that permeates most of the OAV’s these days, Gantz will prove a welcome diversion. Gantz frickin’ rocks.
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